Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald is a famous American novelist, essayist, short-story writer, and screenwriter. Scott was born on 24th September 1896 in Minnesota, United States and died on 21st December 1940 in Hollywood, California. He is well known for his flamboyant novels. During his life, the novelist published a collection of four short stories, 164 short stories, and four novels. Francis got temporary success in the 1920s as well as critics after his death. However, he is considered among the greatest writers in America of the 20th century. Here are interesting things about Fitzgerald.
1. Worked as a screenwriter
Scott had a series of career and was attempting to stop drinking. He went to Los Angeles, California in 1937 and worked with MGM film studio as a screenwriter. The novelist did the job for more than 2 years and worked on films like “Gone with the Wind” and “A Yank at Oxford”. However, his scripts such as Joan Crawford and Greta Tabo were almost rejected. Later he got a Hollywood reward in 1938 for writing a film known as “Three Comrades “. His studio contracts were later terminated.
2. Succumbed before finishing his novel
In the year 1940, Scott started writing “The Love of the Last Tycoon”. The novel was inspired by working life at the trenches in Hollywood. He tried to work on the novel while fighting liquor addiction and debt. Fitzgerald wrote to Zelda “it will, at any rate, be nothing like anything else I’m digging it out of myself like uranium”. The famous novelist believed that his work will succeed. After one month, he suffered from a heart attack and died at 44 years. This novel was left half unfinished but most critics claimed that it was the most accomplished work.
3. Scott’s wife was a flapper
After publishing “The side of Paradise”, he married a beautiful wife called Zelda Sayre. She was the daughter of a judge and was a great inspiration. Sayre inspired a liberated generation called “flapper “girls and her husband often wrote in stories. She was a dancer, painter, and writer, drank and smoked in public. This couple lived their lives to the fullest, they worn fashionable clothes. The writer called Ring Lardner to them as “The Prince and Princess of their generation”. However their happiness was cut short when Zelda suffered from mental condition while Scott struggled with alcoholism.
4. He was a student with a learning disability
Despite having great talent in writing, Fitzgerald struggled to get pass marks in grade school as well as college. While studying at Princeton University, he skipped classes thus failed. Later, he abandoned school and joined the military. Also he suffered from dyslexia hence had difficulties in reading and spelled words wrongly. After his classmate read a typo-version of “This Side of Paradise”, Wilson declared that the book was illiterate.
5. Named after a popular ancestor
Born on 24th September 1896, he was named after a famous lawyer and writer, Francis Scott Key. He wrote lyrics of “The Star-Spangled Banner” in the period of 1812 during the war. These two were distant relatives and Key was 2nd cousin. Fitzgerald served as a family connection. In 1934, he drove past Key statue and shouted to a friend not to let frank see him while drank.
Leave a Reply